Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(1807 – 1882)

The prominent American poet, professor of literature of Harvard

The main works:

ü a book of verses “Voices of the Night” “The secret of the Sea”

ü - “Poems on Slavery” “The Slave’s Dream”

ü “The Song of Hiawatha”

“The Song of Hiawatha”, 1855

ü a narrative poem in “unrhymed trochaic (long or stressed syllables followed by a short or unstressed one) tetrameter (a line of four feet)”

ü based on Indian legends;

ü was conceived as a poetic narration of an Indian hero;

ü Hiawatha was an Indian chief, who lived, as the legends say, at the end of the 15^th century;

ü the only epic poem in American literature in which the manner of life & the beliefs of the Indian people are described.

ü the first truly poetic description of American nature & national American Characters.

ü He did much to popularize American folk themes abroad

Style:

ü strongly influenced by German romantic poets;

ü high-minded but conventional, untouched by the religious and social struggles

ü musical, melodious, melancholy, wistful.

Jack London

(1876-1916)

ü wrote more than 1000 works;

ü was deeply influenced by Nietzsche, Marx, Darwin.

From Nietzsche borrowed the idea of the super human beings.

From Marx - the idea of the need for social reform and of the power of economic determinism.

From Darwin- the idea, that to survive man must adapt to irresistible forces of nature and to “the stress and strain of life”.

ü a story teller of great emotional power and excitement;

ü a writer, bold, sensational, tragic, like his characters a champion and a victim of the “wild indulgences” of life and nature.

Works:

ü “Martin Eden”

ü “The Call of the Wild”

ü “White Flag”

Herman Melville

(1819-1891)

ü A novelist and short story writer;

Works:

“Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life”;

‘Omoo: A Narrative adventures of the Pacific Islands”.

“Moby Dick; or the White Whale”.

Moby Dick

Characters:

ü Ahab, the captain of a whaling ship, the Pequod;

ü Ishmael, a member of a crew;

ü Moby Dick, a white whale.

Themes:

ü the defeat and triumph of the human spirit;

ü the conflict between good and evil;

ü the conflict between man and nature;

ü The impossibility of escaping fate.

Style:

ü variety of styles from sailor’s slang to biblical parable;

ü The use of symbolic associations- Ahab, Moby Dick

ü The narrative is:

a) at times naturalistic, at times fantastic;

b) Interrupted by soliloquies, long digressions on whales and the art of whaling.